Why on earth would my husband do this? - Kick up the Bum - its so peculiar

[LucyLoo1972]

If my husband and I go up to bed at the same time in the evening, he comes up behind me on the stairs. When he is behind me he will give me a 'kick up the bum' and say I'm sorry 'Did I give you a kick up the bum?' and kind of laugh.
I've told him it hurts and it hurts my coccyx (don't know how to spell it) but he doesn't stop. Now, I have to make him go up in front of me to avoid it happening.

He'e not physically aggressive in any other way (although he can be clumsy so I can get hurt) but this is deliberate.

Has anybody any clue why he would do this? ive had to reassess our relationship fro many reasons in the last years.

sorry - yes I don't really notice now and honestly I try to actively go against everything having to be perfect now.

He could be joking, we is a joker. i am realising now it was a really small example, but there were a lot of things that were more damaging. Its on me for never challenging them and allowing those things to erode me. I knew it wasn't healthy and im so devastated I cant get my life back as I love him with my whole heart and we were insanely well matched in many ways.

not sure but he manages it somehow. maybe he knees me - I dont know

well the bum thing is just a detail form before my breakdown years and years ago. the Christians day thing happened the other day.

Since I have had the breakdown, he hasn't much engaged with my care. It was truly and utterly devastating for him because almost overnight I turned form this very sane and gentle and caring person who was very capable to totally insane (I believed I was being used by the devil and refuses to wash etc etc.). He came to the first couple of doctors appointments but then he refused ot engage anymore and refused couples counselling or therapy for himself. So I became more and more angry and more and more through therapy, I could see how impossible he had made my life. The kick up the bum thing is one tiny tiny example that I dont understand but there are many others difficult things. Extreme procrastination, never buying me a birthday or Christmas gift, saying he will do things that he never did, picking me up 45 mins late at night in the cold. refusing to talk about having children, being so frugal it crushed me as I didnt have things I needed, hoarding and not letting me even through away my old own old things. I would clear out and go trough bags and bags of old paper work and find them taken out of the recycling bin and back in the house. I would cry about not having kids and he wouldn't talk about it. and im devastated I let yself be under all this everyday strain. I love home design and am very creative at it but he opulent compromise so I could have a house I was happy in.

I think my childhood trauma must have made me feel I was never enough and I was. I had overcome so much. I wasn't even ugly, I never demanded anything of him at all ever. Hone I was finishing up my phd I asked him if he could drop me off on his way to work by letting me out at the lights because I was going crazy at home and he said it would take too much time if the lights changed. Well I did go crazy.

I know in my head my worth doesnt really on my academic achievements and I should have known this becasue I was a Christian and should have none that God gives us grace and we don have to be perfect. But my work was about social justice and trying to right some fo the wrongs id experienced as a child in poverty. And then ironically as an adult with money I allowed myself ot become convinced I couldnt spend on even important things for me.

Trump was part of my delusions in some way. I thought I was worse than Trump.

OP it is called 'death by 1000 cuts' and it is a long term abusive strategy designed to drive you mad. Which in your case has literally happened.

You need to get away from him any way, any how.

The only way he could “knee” you up the bum is if he was literally on the step behind you, and he’s over 6 feet tall and you’re under 4 feet tall.

oh good Lord, I have no clue. All I know is I get a pain in my bum. He is 6ft and im 4ft 10 lol.

honestly I regret posting about this becasue it is the least of the issues we had- I alwasy just wondered about it though as the other behaviours are less unusual.

sorry- what do you im not a genuine poster? im not really au fait with how these boards really work maybe. I know im fixated on different things - I lost my whole life and am trying to make sense of it. one of the problems is that a less damaged perosn than I was would challenge all the thigns that were really stressing me out and putting my nervous system into overdrive. I know there are so so many crazy things and I honestly dont know how I was such a capable sane perosn and my life descended to this level of madness.

I want to ask about this because I honestly don't believe any of his behaviours were intentionally abusive. Im not saying they didnt contribute to my mental breakdown becasue I believe they did but there were many factors related to my work as well. im honestly confused.

OP, just to clarify, the kicking you thing - is this something that has been happening recently or something that happened 9 years ago? It doesn't make a difference to if it's a bad thing or not but I ask because I wonder if this is another bit of focusing on the past rather than thinking about whats happening and how you can improve things for yourself now?

I think you've had some really thoughtful advice about ways to think about building a new life for yourself but to do that, we have to be able to let go a little of the old life we imagined.

He's doing this so he can kick you and pretend that's not what he was doing by claiming it's a joke. Physical abuse, gaslighted away. If he just straight up kicked you, he wouldn't be able to deny it. This way he gets to.

It is what it looks like.

Please contact women's aid and do some reading on coercive control - I think you will find that a lot of things start to fall into place if you do.

He did this a long time ago before my breakdown which was nine years ago.

Now there is abuse for sure as it is outright. but I blame myself for that becasue after my breakdwon I completely lost the plot especially when I could see soem of what made life difficult befroe. my mind is very very confused.

yes- I agree I am stuck in the past. its becasue I feel I am lost somewhere back there and I think I believe I could have changed the course of terrible events that unfolded.

in so many ways he was a wonderful husband and I cannot imagine ever being connected to somebody like that ever. we've known each other for 30 years.

You cannot change the past. I think we believe that if we had done x, y or z differently it would have changed the outcome because that makes us feel less helpless and powerless. But you must be kind to yourself, you did what was right with the information you had at the time.

it sounds to me a bit like you had a traumatic upbringing and then he might have seemed like a wonderful husband because he offered you some level of love and normality and you obviously wanted and needed that. But someone who kicks you, who does not celebrate your achievements, who makes things difficult when you have deadlines, who does not let you spend money, who throws your papers away, that is not a loving and wonderful husband. But this is not a failing in you. There is not a magic word or sentence you could have said that would have made it different.

It’s like you are casting around in the past trying to make sense of what happened as if you can change it, and all you can change is your story going forward. This is why it matters to speak to Women’s Aid (in private without your husband) and get your own life stable. Like what you need in the here and now to be okay. Take the advice of your therapist and work out how to have some time yourself to heal. You need to learn to breath freely and trust yourself and space to untangle your thoughts and come out of the past and into the presence, which your therapist can help with.

They can see that you're not going to be able to reclaim your life until you're free of this man OP and they know that you WILL reclaim that life if you can just see what it could look like.

I don’t think us posters have the skills needed to help OP. I am very concerned that she has been left with nothing to eat.
I read a previous thread where abusive family members have told social services they are worried for her safety. And one where she says her DH had that condition where he has had sex with her in his sleep, but she has never been able to tell him.
Not flouncing off, just saying my shortcomings as a poster mean it’s not easy to cope with so, so much conflicting information from someone who needs more professional help than she is receiving.

thank you for your help - it honestly has been very useful and you have been exceptionally kind to me. I do have a lot of professional support in that I see a psychologist and a psychotherapist every week but they haven't really been able to help me very much - largely due ot the strangeness of soem of my mental health symptoms which ive not really explained too much here and there not being a very clear current diagnosis except for CPTSD.

I can get food- I have money in my account and I am able to go out and actually I go out to eat fairly often to be able to get out of the house. its just on Christmas Day I didnt buy food in because we were due to go to his brothers house but my husabnd changed his mind at the last minute and said we weren't going and then went out.

what I do think is my current situation is probably giving me live trauma. it is interesting becasue throughout all of this I have never experienced any flashbacks to my childhood trauma. what I do know is that it left me way too compliant.

btu im so very grateful for your comments nd help. there is a lot more complexity to it all becasue of the nature of my work.

im not sure what to do about the professional help. it is costing us almost £1000 a month and I haven't worked for most of the last eight years. I was never hospitalised so maybe I need inpatient care, or a different kind of therapy.

thank you - my stickiness in the past is insane. ive never heard of anybody be so stuck. when I got unwell I kept saying I died and thats what it feels like, that im no longer here which is why I think I try ot go back to the past. becasue of this they are exploring the idea I have a dissociative disorder and was severely dissociated befroe although they dont think it is DID and neither do I .

I was thinking about this earlier today.
I think that what you say about live trauma matters because it sounds like you have a situation which remains traumatic to live in. Dissociation is a way of shutting down your feelings so you can cope, as I understand it. But to process the feelings, you need to be in a safe space. I wonder if that is why you are looping because to move on or out of the loop you need to be somewhere safe for you. I wonder if you can explore how to get somewhere different to live with your therapist and mental health support team, or Women’s Aid as well.

You are of course still here and your life has value and maybe it just feels too scary to take the steps to get beyond where you are now. I don’t know. That is just what I was thinking, that it would be easier to address the trauma of your marriage somewhere other than in your marriage and with the appropriate support.

Have you duscussed with your psychologist how you define "love"? What does it mean that you "love him"?how does that justify his behaviours?
You strongly believe you love him yet everything he does indicates very little love for you.

I’m betting that would be your precious things, not his.